E-mail Bonding

Well there were actually moments available during staff development yesterday where I could get caught up on some work in my classroom. Who knew that Mind Maps (brainstorming by writing stuff in circles) would not take eight hours to introduce to teachers? Really, some more thought needs to be put into these staff developments. I know, maybe they can do a Mind Map for the next one.

Like I said, though, it was a blessing because there was some time to get some grading done. Unfortunately, a colleague kept interrupting. He would forward me all these e-mails, but after each one he would run down to my room to first ask me if I got the e-mail he just sent, second what I thought about the contents, and finally, he would share his own thoughts.

Now I’m going to come off as ageist here, but I don’t see anyway around it. It has been my experience that rabid forwarders of e-mails tend to be of an older generation. This particular colleague of mine is of this same generation. You know the e-mails I’m talking about. They’re the ones with certain subject lines:

What Your Government Doesn’t Want You to Know About Pretzels.

This is not a Hoax. My Neighbor’s Son’s Best Friend Confirmed This. He’s a Volunteer Firefighter.

The Truth About Bluetooth.

And they are all in this giant font, which is (again, sorry) older generation friendly. New rule—I’m not interested in any e-mail written in a giant font. Give it to an old person!

I finally had to lock my door to keep my mature e-mailer at bay. At first there were knocks on the door, so I waited for him to leave before turning off my light to enhance the effect that my room was empty. Soon after I could hear something being shoved under the door. It was a printout of the e-mails.